


by heart

by fiveyaaas



Series: open your heart [1]
Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Angst, Complicated Relationships, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Fluff and Angst Without Plot, Gift Fic, Insomnia, Kinda, Short One Shot, all titled with heart idioms, day 1 of my valentine’s day series!!!, i’m going to have fourteen angst or fluff fics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-01
Updated: 2021-02-01
Packaged: 2021-03-12 21:15:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,320
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29142093
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fiveyaaas/pseuds/fiveyaaas
Summary: “by heart:by rote or from memory”
Relationships: Number Five | The Boy/Vanya Hargreeves
Series: open your heart [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2138898
Comments: 4
Kudos: 28





	by heart

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Jules5971](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jules5971/gifts).



> Dedicated to jules5971, for always reassuring me when I’m struggling with writing!!!

It was odd to feel him beside her again, ready to fall asleep, even after nearly half a year spent together. When they’d been younger, they’d shared a bed all the time. Now, it felt almost like they were young again, but she knew it was out of necessity. Though, really, it had been the same logic that had kept them sharing a bed before. Back then, he’d been trying to protect her from nightmares that weren’t all that rational. These days, he was trying to protect her from the true monsters, ones that would kill them without a second thought. 

“You’re still awake,” he commented, voice sounding rough. Or maybe it was how deep it sounded, how much it had changed from when she’d first seen him again and he’d been in her apartment. She wondered who owned that apartment now, if Mrs. Kowalski would make a comment about her spending time with an older man if she saw them in the hallways. Though Five still didn’t look as old as he really was, she supposed.

“It’s hard for one to sleep when one thinks that one might die.”

“You’re not going to die,” Five said, rolling his eyes in a way that made her wonder if he was trying to reassure himself of the fact. “You’re sleeping beside the greatest assassin of all time.” Some nights it was easier for her to fall asleep, but her mind was filled with thoughts of what was _different_ in this timeline.

“Wouldn’t that mean I’m _more_ likely to die?”

“Not if said assassin wants you alive, more than anything else in the world.”

Their family was gone. She didn’t know if they’d ever be back. Somewhere out there were alternate versions of themselves, and somewhere out there was an alternate version of Ben, who was ready to kill them both. 

“I can’t sleep,” she finally croaked, sitting up on their bed and stepping to the kitchen, hearing Five follow close behind her. “Even if I feel safe with you, it’s not going to happen. There’s just so much I can’t stop thinking about.”

“That’s fine. I can stay up with you.”

She frowned. “You shouldn’t. It’s unhealthy for you to not be sleeping, you know.”

“Yeah, well, I’m not going to let you be alone when you’re scared. Plus, you’re not sleeping, either.”

Vanya didn’t argue with either comment; she didn’t want to be alone and she _was_ being hypocritical. 

“Do you want anything?” he asked, flicking his eyes to the coffee pot. “I could make some coffee and breakfast…”

“It’s three in the morning.”

“Time isn’t real. Trust me, I’m an expert on it.”

He was saying it to make her laugh, smile, show anything other than stress on her face. She tried to smile, but it came out more of a grimace. 

“I’m really sorry that we’re here,” he mumbled, glancing down at the counter before quickly grabbing coffee grounds from the cabinet. “You… I fucked up, V. I’m sorry.”

“It’s fine.” She sat down on the counter beside him instead of going and sitting alone at the table. “There was no way you could have known, Five.”

“Are you mad at me?” His voice was anxious. “For making you leave when… when this happened?”

“I’m not mad at you,” she promised, smoothing back his hair. It was soft to the touch, mainly because she had convinced him to wear less hair gel last month. Well, really, she’d only commented on it absentmindedly when she’d been stroking his hair, trying to calm both him and herself down with the motion, reading a book to him softly until he fell asleep in her lap. The next day, he’d practically abandoned the hair gel completely. 

“But you left—”

She pressed her forehead to his. “I’m not mad at you,” she repeated. “You couldn’t have possibly known what was going to happen.”

His green eyes could barely stay on her own, and she could see guilt flashing through them. It was odd to think that he would feel so upset about that, but then she supposed it was the fact that she kept throwing herself at him like this. One time he’d shouted at her that he didn’t want to be one of the people she only stayed with a month when she’d leaned into kiss him, and she got the idea that he didn’t think that he’d ever be something significant to her. Or maybe it was the fact that he knew that it wasn’t hard for her to fall in love. 

“You know, my book probably doesn’t even exist in this timeline,” she blurted, not wanting to think about him rejecting her. Vanya was pretty certain he wasn’t just doing so out of disgust or anything else. He still cuddled up to her and made excuses to touch her and kissed her on her shoulder, cheek, neck, and forehead. Maybe it was just that he was trying to protect his own heart. 

“Why… where is this coming from?”

Hopping off the counter, she shrugged, having thought this briefly earlier today but not really giving much other thought to it. The only reason she’d brought it up was because she’d wanted to say that she loved him, and she knew it would only make him more worried about her. Quietly, she explained, “Well, I wasn’t adopted by him in this timeline, so I wouldn’t have ever written a book about how he raised me. It’s not really that bothersome, I didn’t think that the writing was that—”

“I have it memorized, if you’d ever like to transcribe it or whatever.”

“You what?”

He blushed, and she could feel her heart stutter a beat. “I mean, there wasn’t a lot to…” Shaking his head, like he was trying to force himself to be completely honest, he amended, “Yeah, I memorized it. It was all I had left of you, and I wasn’t going to waste it. Plus, it was the only book I read consistently all those years. I don’t know how many times I read it, but I have the entire thing memorized, from cover to cover.”

“How is that even possible?”

“Twenty five years of actively practicing it when I worried that it might get torn apart?” His voice was a little bit sheepish, like he was embarrassed to admit that. “I had kept it tucked under my shirt, a lot of times, when the storms came. It felt like if it got hurt, I’d be hurting you. At the same time, there was this constant fear that it would get torn up somehow, and I wouldn’t have the words you said any longer.”

She knew there was no possible way he was lying. He wasn’t necessarily bad at lying, but he also wouldn’t lie about _that._ Still, she didn’t know how to comprehend something said so… kindly directed at her, so she mumbled, “I don’t believe you.”

And so he recited it, cover to cover, taking breaks to get them food and drinks. By the time that he was done, both of them were so tired that they were nearly asleep on the couch next to each other. They hadn’t slept a wink last night, and she could feel that starting to take over. 

Still, she asked, “Why would you ever do that?”

“Because I love you.” He probably wouldn’t have said it if it weren’t for the sleep deprivation, but Vanya’s heart stuttered a beat again.

“Why won’t you…” She didn’t finish her question, actually believing him when he said he’d wanted to wait for this, to know that it would mean as much to her as it did to him. With as much love as it would have to take to do that, she could easily imagine why he didn’t think it possible to be reciprocated. “You know I love you too, right?”

He was already asleep.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading!!! There will be 14 fics in this series, and none of them will be related. If you don’t wish to read one for any reason, your understanding will never be affected!!! I just figured that I wanted a little more fluff and angst to celebrate Valentine’s Day. 😤


End file.
